Please Come Home For Christmas
by ObsessivelyOdd
Summary: When your life takes you to the darkest parts of humanity, it can be difficult to understand something as simple as Christmas with your family. Alex gets three ghostly visitors to help him see.
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N: Hello my glorious readers. And Merry Christmas! Ok, I know it's not quite Christmas yet, but this is a Christmas fic, so I couldn't resist wishing you one a day early!**_

_**This is going to be a 2 or 3 shot and will be updated tomorrow and, if it turns out to be 3 chapters, on Boxing Day. Enjoy!**_

_**DISCLAIMER: Seeing as it's still Christmas Eve, not Christmas Day, Santa has yet to bring me the rights to Alex Rider. Or A Christmas Carol.**_

-o-O-o-

Sometimes, Alex wondered about himself.

It was Christmas Eve. Back in England, Tom had apparently been ice skating with some friends, with hot chocolate afterwards. They were all back home, now though. It was nearly three in the morning there, after all.

Just a few miles away – and no, Alex still hadn't made the switch to thinking in kilometres, even if he had been living in the states for almost the last three years – Sabina and her parents were throwing a party. They went all out for parties, remembered Alex with a smile. Sabina would have invited half the school, plus their families, and Edward and Liz would have invited everyone they knew. There would be a ridiculous amount of mulled wine and beer, and a lot of canapés. Last year, Liz had made mini Yorkshire puddings and stuffed them with roast beef and horseradish. Each tray vanished within a minute of being brought out of the oven.

Later, they'd bring out mince pies, and apparently they had finally given in to their daughter's incessant badgering and had hired a chocolate fountain for the occasion.

There would be Christmas songs, and no doubt if he went, he'd want to tear his ears off within half an hour, even as he grinned and danced with Sabina.

But he wasn't there. Instead, he was sitting on the couch in his pokey little apartment, typing up a report for the CIA on his laptop, with one Christmas film after another playing on the muted TV. The only other sign that it was Christmas at all, here, was a plastic tree sitting on his table that Sabina had marched in and deposited there, right before he told her he was leaving for a mission.

They didn't know he was back yet. He'd only returned at about lunch time, after his shortest stay in hospital to date – just three hours. Byrne had told him to take a few days off before starting to think about the report, but Alex preferred to get everything down immediately. He couldn't let himself forget it until he had after all.

He'd delay a few days before handing it in, of course. Otherwise Byrne would get worried again and try to send him to a therapist again. They both knew how well that had gone over _last _time.

He'd been working for the CIA for almost two years now – ever since his sixteenth birthday. He'd bought the flat with his first pay check – he'd never realised being a spy could pay so well – because he'd been unsure of his reception back at the Pleasures. Liz and Edward had been… very forthright on their objections.

They'd welcomed him back, but Alex had never felt as comfortable with them, since they had tried to deny something that, he was realising, was a large part of him and his legacy. He could never have given the job up for good.

He groaned as he finished typing up his infiltration and put the laptop down. He was sleepy, but loath to go to bed until he finished the report.

Surely, just closing his eyes for a moment couldn't hurt?

"Honey, don't go to sleep yet," said a voice.

Alex groaned and his eyelids fluttered.

"J'ck?" he murmured, confused. His eyes opened and he frowned. "I thought you were dead?"

"I'm sorry, honey. I'm not Jack," said Jack and Alex frowned. "I'm the ghost of Christmas Past."

"Who are you, and why do you look like Jack?" demanded Alex, rolling away over the back of the couch.

"I told you, I'm the Ghost of Christmas Past. And I look like Jack because who else would I look like? She as good as raised you, Alex."

"You know what?" snapped Alex, backing up to hide the tears springing to his eyes. "I don't care. I don't care who you are, or what sick _game_ you're playing! Just get out!"

Jack sighed, and then suddenly she was beside him. "Come, Alex. There is much for me to show you."

She placed two fingers to his forehead and Alex felt himself dissolving into the air.

When he came back together, he was somewhere else entirely.

They were in a snow-covered field, thick clouds above them blocking out the night sky.

"Do you remember this?" she asked, quietly.

"It's kind of hard to forget," spat Alex. "Why have you brought me here?"

"There's something that you've forgotten," said not-Jack. "Something that you shouldn't have forgotten."

"What?"

She gave a light, musical laugh that broke Alex's heart with its familiarity. "It doesn't work like that, Alex. You have to work that out on your own."

"Fine," muttered Alex. "Come on, then."

He shoved his hands in his pockets and tramped across the fields. The ghost rolled her eyes and walked after him.

She caught up with him at the far end of the field, outside a small, ramshackle shed.

"Do I have to do this?" he asked.

"I cannot make you do anything," she said, softly. "It is your choice. If you want to remember, you will continue."

"And it's important?" he asked, his voice pained.

"Yes."

"I _hate_ this," he growled and yanked open the door. He slammed it behind him, and the ghost sighed, again, and walked through. They could be so tiresome on the first few visits.

Inside the hut, there was a flight of stairs descending down into the ground and Alex was already halfway down despite the dark. When she appeared in front of him at the bottom, he jumped and scowled. "Too good for stairs, are you?" he hissed quietly.

"They can't hear us, Alex. Or see us, for that matter."

"My point still stands," grouched Alex, walking down the corridor. Behind him, he assumed, the Jack-ghost followed.

Already, the smell was assaulting him. He could feel him going cold at the first traces and by the time it had turned into the stench of disease and death that he remembered he was shaking in badly suppressed horror.

"It's okay, Alex," whispered not-Jack, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. "You got through this. You got out and you recovered. You _are_ strong enough to revisit it."

"I…", he stuttered, pulling away uncomfortably. So much of his psyche depended on locking the horrors of his past away, that he really wasn't sure that that was true. He jumped as she laid a cold hand on his arm.

"You _can_," she said, and he nodded.

"Right," he said, striding on. "I _will._"

"Atta boy," whispered the ghost, before hurrying after him.

When she found him again, he was standing in front of a row of bars, looking through at himself. Past-him looked even worse than he remembered. In fact, if Alex hadn't known it was him to the very depths of his soul, he wouldn't have recognised him. One side of his face was swollen with bruising, with all of it streaked with blood from a deep cut in his hairline. His shoulders hung unevenly and he was hunched over to one side to shield broken ribs. He was thin, and shaking and blood bubbled from his lips with every gasping breath, courtesy of teeth knocked out from repeated blows to the face.

"That is you last Christmas," she said, as if he didn't know.

"Hey, Rider," spat a man, and Alex spun around, his face going white.

But the man simply walked straight through him and into the cage.

"I thought we'd try something a little different this time," said the man. "Tell me, Rider. How do you feel about fire?"

"What do I need to remember?" present-him said, desperately. "I don't want to watch this."

"Look," she said, gesturing through the bars.

"I don't want to," said Alex, continuing to stare at his hands.

Before his eyes, the ghost grew and became transparent, misty and ruffled by malevolent winds, her eyes burning red. "You Will Look," she commanded, every syllable a death knell.

Moments later, she returned to her Jack-form and Alex breathed a sigh of relief.

"I'm sorry, Alex," she said. "But you are passed the point of no return. You will not find peace until you face this."

Alex nodded and turned to face the bars once more.

He stared. "I don't remember this," he said.

"I know. This is why you must look."

And he did. He saw, not just the mutilations visited on him by his torturer, but the blank, peaceful look in his eyes, and the half-smile on his face, that only shuddered slightly with each new horror.

"What were you thinking of?" asked not-Jack.

"I don't remember," he replied, woodenly.

"Yes, you do," she corrected, gently.

"I-"

"Yes?"

"Sabina," he said, finally. "Sabina and Liz and Edward, and how doing this job, and surviving everything it threw at me, meant that they'd be safe, that they would never have to know what this truly meant."

"You'd do anything to keep them safe."

"They're almost family."

"Alex, do not lie to yourself," she said, sternly.

"But-"

"Why do you qualify how you feel about them?" she asked. "They are your family, and deep down, you know this. So why do you deny it?"

Alex scowled. "I think we're done here."

She sighed.

"As you wish," she said, and touched his forehead.

Once more, he dissolved into air and reformed somewhere else.

Alex looked around. "I thought you were taking me home?" he said, desperately.

"Don't you recognise where we are?" she asked, quietly.

He swallowed and shook his head in denial. "Alex, you _are_ home."

"This isn't my home," he denied, desperately.

"Then why do you look like someone just poisoned your pet hamster?" she asked.

"Fine," snarled Alex. "Why are we here?"

"You had fifteen Christmases here, Alex. Did you think that we could pass it by entirely?"

He sighed and sat down on the couch. "I guess not," he said, glancing around his uncle's living room.

The melancholy feeling was broken by a giggling blur of bubbles that stampeded into the room and scrambled over the sofa to hide behind it.

Alex stared in bemusement at the young blond child currently clutching at the sofa through his legs.

"Is that me?" he asked.

"Of course it is, Alex," smiled not-Jack. "Don't you recognise yourself?"

"Apparently not," said Alex, bemusedly. "How old am I?"

"Erm, 'I'm-not-three-I'm-nearly-four', I believe."

Alex blushed.

Suddenly, there were harried footsteps behind him.

"Alex!" called a voice. "Alex, you little monster, where have you gone?"

Alex spun around. "Ian?" he whispered.

"There you are!" growled Ian playfully, as he spotted his soapy nephew. "Now, what did I say about the bath?"

'_I escaped from the bath?'_ mouthed Alex, incredulously, prompting not-Jack to giggle again.

"Nuffin'," giggled Alex skittering away to hide behind the tree in the corner.

"Now, you know that's not true, Alex," said Ian, bending down to peer at the three-year-old under the lowest branches.

Little Alex pouted adorably from behind the pine needles.

"What did I say, Alex?"

"Tha' I haf to have a bath 'n' go to bed or Faver Chrissmas won't come."

Behind Ian, not-Jack seemed to be having a seizure from over-exposure to adorableness.

"That's right, little buddy. Now, do you want Santa to come?"

Alex nodded forlornly.

"Are you going to come and finish your bath like a big boy?"

Alex pouted and then nodded and crawled out to let his uncle pick him up.

"Come on then, kiddo," said Ian, swinging Alex onto his hip with practiced ease.

"Love you, Unca Ian," mumbled Alex sleepily. He seemed a completely different child from three seconds ago.

"Don't call me uncle, Alex. Just Ian."

"Sorry, Ian," mumbled Alex, snuggling down further into Ian's now soaking t-shirt.

"I love you too, little one," whispered Ian, softly, pressing a kiss to Little Alex's forehead.

Only Alex and not-Jack saw the stricken expression on his face when he said it.

"This is the last Christmas we spent together, isn't it?" asked Alex quietly.

"Yes. At least here, in this house. There were a few times he took you abroad, I think. While he was working."

"We don't have to go through them all, do we?" asked Alex.

"We'll fast forward through the next few," she said and Alex nodded in relief.

The next four Christmases were… depressing to say the least. There was no decoration, or food and the only celebration was Little Alex opening a few presents alone on Christmas morning. Without fail, one was a book in a foreign language that Alex would then end up struggling through for the rest of the day.

Things changed when he was eight years old. The decorations were almost obnoxiously shiny, and if he really thought hard, Alex could remember a pair of warm arms lifting him up to hang the paper chains from the lights and helping him wrap tinsel around the bannisters on the stairs.

But right now, there was simply the smell of the only meal Jack spent more than ten minutes on cooking in the oven, and a plate of mince pies on the coffee table, next to a half drunk glass of sherry. One of the mince pies had a large bite taken out of it, Alex noted with a smile. It had taken Jack half an hour to convince him that even if Santa didn't exist, that putting out sherry and a mince pie for him and a carrot for Rudolph couldn't do any harm. When she'd finally broken down into simplified game theory, Little Alex had given in and placed, with great reverence, a mince pie and a chopped carrot on a plate, and poured sherry carefully into the glass with a childish hopeful solemnity that belied his apparent disbelief in Santa Claus.

Suddenly, Little Alex, still in his pyjamas cannoned into the room, only to stop and stare in amazement at the presents.

"Jack!" he yelled excitedly. "JACK! Santa's been!"

Alex held his breath as he heard someone coming out of the kitchen behind him. He couldn't turn around. He couldn't.

"Well of course he has, sweetie," said a voice, and almost against his will, Alex spun around.

Stood in the doorway to the kitchen was Jack. Not not-jack, with Jack's face and voice and laugh and none of her mannerisms, but Jack, with her boyish grin and frizzy hair and off-key singing at ridiculous hours of the day.

"Jack," he whispered brokenly. "I miss you so much," he told her, although he knew she couldn't hear him.

It was bittersweet, to see that day, to see Jack coax smiles and laughs out of the reticent eight-year-old and ply him with more treats than could possibly be good for him. They played in the snow, and Alex made his first snow angel before, giggling, shoving snow down the back of Jack's top and starting a snowball fight of epic proportions and, when finally too cold and wet to continue, Jack took him back inside and made hot chocolate while he had a bath and changed into warm clothes. She pulled him into her lap while he drank, and he read to her from the book Ian had sent, translating from Spanish as he went.

When his eyes started to droop, she made him lay down the book and pushed a video into the machine. That night, Little Alex fell asleep to the black and white flickering of 'It's a Wonderful Life'.

"Are you ok?" asked Not-Jack, as Alex watched Jack carry Little Alex to bed.

"Yeah, I'm fine," murmured Alex, wiping tears away from his cheeks, and smiling slightly. "I'm perfect."

-o-O-o-

He woke up to find Scrooge playing on the telly and sighed. That had been one hell of a weird dream. Probably just the mission screwing with his thoughts.

He sighed and pulled his laptop back over to him. He really should finish the report tonight.

-o-O-o-

_**A/N: So what did you think? Can you guess who is going to appear next? And I hope that Santa brings me lots of REVIEWS for the morning!**_


	2. Chapter 2

_**A/N: Hello my pretties! (Yes, I'm channelling the wicked witch of the west. Be afraid, be very afraid!) How are you all? Are you having a good Christmas? I am! My dad got a new camera, which is brilliant because it means I got his old one! And do you know what? He had this beautiful piece of machinery for years and he never gave her a name! I'm outraged! Of course, I'm now trying to think of one myself… What do we think of Emmeline? Emmie for short? Suggestions welcome!**_

_**I also got a truly obscene amount of chocolate, so I'm very happy and currently wondering whether I should open the terry's chocolate orange despite making myself feel slightly nauseous because of chocolate earlier…**_

_**Anyways! Here's the chapter!**_

_**DISCLAIMER: Despite multiple letters, bargaining and even blackmail, Santa failed to bring the rights to Alex Rider or A Christmas Carol, so as usual I own nothing!**_

-o-O-o-

He barely had time to type three words before the laptop was yanked out of his hands.

"Oi! You!"

"Wha-?" started Alex. "Oh come _on._"

"I," pronounced the grinning figure, "Am-"

"Another figment of my imagination?" suggested Alex, as he eyed the slightly-off version of his best friend.

He did _look_ like Tom, sure, but Alex was sure that Tom had never managed to get his hair to stand entirely on end as if gravity just didn't apply to it and have sparks of electricity running through it and across his eyes. Well, apart from that time he stuck a fork into a plug socket to 'see what would happen'.

But even if he _had_ had another experiment with electricity, Alex doubted that even Tom would ever wear the strange patchwork creation that Not-Tom had on.

"Well, sort of," said not-Tom. "I'm actually a figment of your imagination prompted by the outside sources who decided that I needed to visit you."

"So you're not real?"

Not-Tom gave him a confused look. "When did I ever say that?"

"You just admitted that you were a figment of your imagination!" exclaimed Alex, irritably.

"Well, yes, sort of. But why does that mean I'm not real?"

Alex groaned and shook his head.

"Look. This is just a dream," he said. "A weird, fucked up dream from too much adrenaline, not enough food or sleep and too many bad Christmas movies. And if I just wait here patiently, then I'll wake up and I can pretend that this will never happen."

"Keep telling yourself that," said Not-Tom, obviously amused.

Alex nodded firmly and pulled his laptop back towards him.

He'd written three sentences, this time, before Not-Tom interrupted him.

"If you're so convinced that this is a dream, then why are you bothering to do the work?" he asked. "I mean, when you wake up, it won't be done, will it?"

"The only other option is talking to you," griped Alex, still typing away diligently.

"Well, that's true, I guess," said Not-Tom. "But, see, the thing is, I'm not going to go away until I've shown you what you need to see."

"Well, can you not-go-away quietly, then?" asked Alex, tersely, not taking his eyes off the laptop.

Not-Tom sighed. "See, yeah, I could. But where would the fun in that be?"

Not-Tom started to sing, incredibly off key, and Alex groaned.

"Jingle Bells, Shotgun Shells, Santa Claus is dead! Rudolph got a .22 and shot him in the head, Hey!"

"Will you shut up?" snarled Alex.

"Errrm… Nope!" replied Not-Tom with a grin, before bouncing over the back of the sofa and landing in Alex's lap. Only very quick reactions on behalf of the spy saved his laptop from an untimely end.

"Jingle Bells, Shotgun Shells-"

"Alright!" yelled Alex, over the racket. "If I come with you will you stop singing? _Please?"_

"Of course!" exclaimed Not-Tom, slinging his arms around Alex's neck.

"So…?" prompted Alex, as Not-Tom simply stared at him with that insane grin.

"Oh, right!" said Tom, scrambling out of Alex's lap to stand importantly in front of him. "I am the Ghost of Christmas Present," he said. "Look upon me!"

"I've been trying not to," said Alex, wryly. Not-Tom stuck out his tongue, before apparently remembering himself.

"Are you ready to go?"

"Go where?" asked Alex, before letting out an 'oomph' as Not-Tom once more leapt into his lap.

"Is this really necessary?" asked Alex, once he had managed to breath. "The last ghost managed to move us by simply touching my head."

"Yeah, well Mosy has it easy," said the spirit grouchily, twisting around in Alex's lap to fiddle with the arm of the sofa. "She only has to move you to a memory. And so she just brings your memory out for you to see."

"Mosy?" asked Alex nonplussed.

"Mnemosyne," said Not-Tom. "It drives her nuts when we call her Mosy, but it's such a mouthful. Ah! There we go."

Suddenly, what Alex could only describe as a –slightly rusty – control panel popped out of the side of the couch.

"What did you do to my sofa!" yelled Alex, trying to shuck the smaller man off him, only to find the newly acquired control panel was conveniently acting as a safety bar.

"Stop squirming," chastised Not-Tom, flicking Alex on the nose. "It makes you terribly uncomfortable."

"Yeah, well, I'm not exactly comfortable with a _stranger_ crawling all over my lap!" exclaimed Alex.

"Oh stop _whining_, Alex!" whined Not-Tom. "I'm not a stranger, I'm your best friend! And, it's not as if you've not had me in your lap before…"

Alex flushed at the insinuation and glared at the ghost. "_You_ are not Tom. You only _look_ like him. And for your information, that was _one_ time! We didn't even really do anything!"

"Of course you didn't, Al," said Not-Tom, patronisingly.

"Don't call me that," grouched Alex sinking back into the cushions.

"Right, I think we're ready to g-"

Alex felt himself be jerked forward as the ghost was cut off with an oomph and the couch started to move along a track that had definitely _not_ been there two minutes ago.

"You turned my couch into a _rollercoaster_?"

-o-O-o-

When the carriage-cum-sofa finally slowed down, the track fading out of existence until they were simply floating in mid-air, they were in what was obviously a living room, which, to Alex, was vaguely familiar.

"Where are we/" asked Alex, frowning as he tried to place the room. His voice echoed slightly as if he was, in reality, somewhere much larger.

"James Hale's house," said Not-Tom. "You went to school with him for a while, I think?"

"Yeah," confirmed Alex. "When I went to Brookland. We were on the football team together."

He faded into silence and regarded the room. Stockings were hung by the fire place, where embers were glowing a cheery cherry red.

"This can't be current," he said. "It's like 3AM in England."

"It's not," said Not-Tom, finally sliding off Alex and cuddling into the cushions on the far side of the sofa. If the whole thing hadn't been so completely unbelievable, Alex would have been surprised that they were still there after the –literal- rollercoaster of a ride.

"Actually, it's about twelve hours ago," admitted Not-Tom, "but it's still _this_ Christmas, so I can show you." The spirit pouted petulantly and continued. "You know, things were _a lot_ simpler before I needed to factor in intercontinental travel."

"Yeah, yeah," muttered Alex. "It sucks to be you. Got it."

Not-Tom frowned and head-slapped him hard.

"Ow!" exclaimed Alex, rubbing his head. "What was that for?"

"Enough with the pity train! And _definitely_ enough with the sarcasm. Now hush, they're coming."

Alex was about to snap back with a sarcastic retort about Not-Tom's own pity-party just a few moments before, or possibly something infinitely less witty but a lot easier in the form of 'your mum', when the door opened and a woman walked through. Well, walked might have been a slight exaggeration. With the amount of layers she was bundled up in, 'waddled' might have been a more accurate description.

"James, help your Grandma," she said, calling back over her shoulder. "Lucy, honey, could you grab the rest of the shopping for me?"

Two affirmations floated through the door way, before a short blond girl walked through the doorway with half a dozen bags of shopping hoisted over her shoulders.

"You do realise that there's only nine of us tomorrow, right Mum?" called Lucy as she followed her mother through to the kitchen. "I swear you bought enough to feed the five thousand!"

"Well I never hear you complaining that there's too much food on the day, do I?"

Alex snorted and turned to watch James help his grandmother over the threshold and settle her into the armchair nearest the fire.

"Can I get you a drink Nan?" he asked and when she shook her head, he disappeared upstairs with her bag.

It seemed that Alex and Not-Tom were there for hours, watching the family bicker over the TV and help their parents start preparations for tomorrow – apparently they were expecting an Aunt, Uncle and Cousin. According to Lucy, the cousin was a brat. According to James, so was Lucy.

At eight, James disappeared to go ice skating with some friends – one of which, Alex was sure, was Tom – and the others settled down to watch a film.

"Ready to go?" asked Not-Tom, tapping Alex's shoulder peacefully.

Alex shrugged. "Sure."

This one hadn't been too bad. His friend had obviously been happy, which was good and if he felt a twinge of jealousy for the obviously caring family, then he could soothe it with the knowledge that he had always known that his family was different.

_The Pleasures aren't,_ whispered a small, treacherous voice in the back of his mind, but Alex ruthlessly quashed it.

-o-O-o-

It was dark where they next ended up, but somehow Alex could still see perfectly clearly, in the way that one often can in dreams. They were in a bedroom, with two figures sleeping in the bed.

"Do you often use your powers to spy on people while they sleep?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "That's kind of… rapey, if I'm honest."

Not-Tom glared at him and turned away as the door opened.

A figure crept across the floor and Alex was shocked to recognise Tom, behind the bruise sprawled angrily across his cheek.

"Ma," he whispered, crouching down next to the woman's sleeping form and shaking her gently awake. "Ma, wake up."

"Tom?" murmured the woman sleepily.

"Just wanted to say Merry Christmas," muttered Tom. "Here's your present."

"Merry Christmas, love," murmured the woman. "There's something for you in the kitchen. Don't tell David."

"I won't," promised Tom. "Love you, Ma. I'll see you tonight."

"You too, Mouse."

Tom slipped out of the room and, with a faint hum, the settee followed Tom through the door and downstairs. The teen dashed into the kitchen and grinned as he found a carefully wrapped present in the plate cupboard, before leaving the house entirely.

Outside, his brother Jerry was waiting in a car.

"Happy Christmas, little bro," said the young man, cuffing Tom over the head. "Dick-wad David give you any trouble?"

"Didn't even wake up," grinned Tom. "Now let's get out of here, yeah?"

-o-O-o-

Alex was thoughtful as the sofa moved away. Despite everything – and Alex definitely wasn't dumb enough to miss the signs of abuse – Tom had seemed cheerful. Normally, he bitched at his mother and he didn't even talk to his dad, but just on that one day, he had shown exactly how much he loved her.

He was startled out of his thoughts again as the sofa jerked to a stop over a desert at sunrise. Just a few metres away was the burnt out shell of a vehicle, with four figures leaning against it.

Suddenly one laughed.

"Of all the luck!" he said, reaching behind him into the carriage of the car. He shifted a little and it became immediately apparent that he was badly injured as he grunted with pain, but he was successful and a moment later he pulled out a bottle that had, miraculously, survived the apparent explosion.

He passed it to the soldier next to him. "Hey, Eagle, open this. I've only got one working arm."

Alex blinked and stared again. Beneath the dirt and soot and grime it could possibly be K-Unit. In fact, yeah, the probably-blond soldier with the Scottish burr was Snake, sitting next to Eagle, and Wolf was on the end.

"And why do we have a bottle of whisky on a strictly tee-total mission?" asked Eagle with a raised eyebrow.

Snake shrugged. "It's Christmas. It seemed appropriate."

Slowly the soldiers managed to scavenge cups, of a sort. Snake was doing best with part of a broken canteen, while the fourth soldier, whose name had been revealed as Shark, was drinking out of a piece of slightly curved metal.

"Here," said Eagle, pouring a generous measure into each container.

"Merry Christmas," said Snake raising his glass with a smile.

"Here's to seeing the New Year," grinned Wolf.

"Doesn't seem likely," said Eagle, with a bitter smile. "But guess that's what we signed up for, huh?"

"Military life!" exclaimed Shark, raising his, now empty, piece of metal. "Love it or leave it!"

"Or both!" grinned Eagle, lifting the bottle to his teammate's lips.

"Happy Christmas, lads," said Wolf, with a smile.

They were laughing because they refused to cry. Alex felt almost obliged to cry on their behalf, but there was still an oddly hopeful air as if, if a miracle were to happen, it would happen on _this_ day.

"Do you hear that?" said Snake, suddenly.

"Hear what?" asked Wolf, gruffly.

"_That_," said Snake, as a steady thrum became easily audible.

Eagle glanced up. "No way!" he exclaimed excitedly.

Even Wolf was fully grinning now.

"It's our lucky day, boys!" he called, as the helicopter flew past and landed nearby.

"What are you guys doing here?" called Snake. "We're not due a flyover for three days!"

"Going to pick up Christmas mail!" called a soldier as he jogged over. "The OC let us use the 'copter because he's just as desperate as the rest of us!"

"Come on," said another, helping Snake up before turning to Eagle. "Let's get you boys back to camp."

-o-O-o-

"Why are we here?" asked Alex, frowning, as he saw where Not-Tom had taken them. "I don't want to be here."

"Nevertheless you need to be," said Not-Tom, serious for once.

"But-"

"No buts. Just watch."

And so Alex watched. He saw how every second glance of Sabina's went towards the phone, and how every other glance went towards the clock or towards a photo of him on the mantelpiece. He saw how her hands shook as she set out glasses.

He saw how Liz forced every smile and how Edward constantly had one eye on the news playing in the corner.

"Can we just go?" he asked, quietly.

Silently, Tom nodded, and the world dissolved around them.

-o-O-o-

_**A/N: So thank you for all the wonderful reviews I got yesterday! I haven't had time to reply to them all, yet, but I will! On another note, I'm very disappointed that none of you guessed Tom for this ghost! Let's see if you can do better this time, huh? Anyway, review and tell me what you thought!**_

_**Hmm… I'm forgetting something aren't I?**_

_**Oh yes!**_

_**MERRY CHRISTMAS!**_


	3. Chapter 3

_**A/N: Ok, wow. This is late. I am so, so sorry! I hit a slight mental block about a thousand words in. And at the start as well, for a bit, but I got it done. I hope you enjoy it. And I can't believe NONE of you guessed who it was!**_

_**-o-O-o-**_

Alex wasn't so sure it was all a dream by the time the third ghost showed up. For a start, the work he'd written had still been there when he'd woken up, and he very much doubted he was capable of having these vivid dreams without a violent ending. Not since MI6 had got their hands on him.

This time, though, it almost beggared belief. A figure appeared before him, cloaked in grey and not a single feature visible.

"You're kidding me," said Alex. "_You_ are the ghost of Christmas Future? Some dude cloaked in a shoddy grey cloak."

And, ok, the cloak wasn't actually shoddy. It glistened as if it were made of starlight and seemed somehow intangible around the edges, as if it were dissolving into the air. But when the figure simply nodded, Alex had to grit his teeth to keep from punching him. Something about the stranger set him on edge.

"Fine," he spat. "What do you have to show me?"

And suddenly there was a rushing wind and sensation of stars hurtling by, of galaxies colliding and black holes falling in on themselves – the sensation of immensity and time.

By the time they stopped, Alex was shaking with his arms wrapped around himself protectively. Never before had he felt so _small_, so unimportant.

"This is the part where you show me my death, right?" he asked.

"No," said the figure. Somehow, its voice sounded dead, broken almost.

"But," began Alex, frowning. "This is a funeral, right?" They were standing outside a church.

"No."

Alex frowned and glanced at the closed double doors before glancing back at the ghost.

A sweeping gesture directed him back towards the church, and Alex walked towards the door.

He spent a moment trying to open it, only to realise that his hand was passing right through the handle. He frowned slightly for a moment then swallowed, closed his eyes and stepped through the door.

The first things he heard were strings playing a sweet song. Even as he listened, the last note faded away.

"Dearly beloved," said a voice, and Alex's eyes snapped open.

It wasn't a funeral. It was a wedding.

A slim, graceful figure in a fairytale-esque wedding dress stood at the altar next to a tall man in a black suit.

"Who…?" asked Alex, confused, before slowly walking up the aisle towards the couple. Beside him, the ghost kept pace.

The aisle seemed a mile long, and each of his footsteps dragged along the carpet that they couldn't actually touch. On either side of him, the seats stretched away, filled with happy, expectant faces.

And finally, he was standing next to the vicar. He didn't recognise the groom, but the bride…

"Sabina," he whispered, a sad smile tugging at his lips. But he didn't understand. Why was he being shown this?

"And do you, Sabina, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

And there, just then, the happy smile slipped from Sabina's face and she glanced over her shoulder as if every inch was a knife in her heart. Alex followed the direction of her gaze to an empty seat, next to Liz and Edward.

_His_ empty seat.

"I don't understand," he said to the ghost next to him. "Why wouldn't I be here?"

Two cold fingers brushed against his forehead, just for a moment and Alex gasped, falling to his knees as he was overwhelmed with sensation.

There was pain and fear and adrenalin. Darkness. Cold. Overwhelming determination.

"I'm on a mission," said Alex, in horrified realisation. "I took a mission and missed my sis- Sabina's wedding."

Suddenly, Alex remembered back to all those empty Christmases when Ian had been elsewhere. Was he really going to turn into his uncle?

"I do," said Sabina, and the scene dissolved.

When the infinite refocused, Alex's heart sank. It was definitely a funeral this time.

It wasn't his though. Or if it was, it was pretty bloody impressive seeing as he definitely recognised the blond figure standing by the casket as himself.

Mentally, he kicked himself. Couldn't he control his thoughts for _once_? He walked around the outside of the chapel and sighed. The room was almost empty, at any rate. It was probably a colleague – no spy ever seemed to keep many acquaintances.

Suddenly, the spectre appeared in front of him.

Alex scowled. "Can't you ghosts move like normal people?" he snapped before jerking around the figure to continue his lap of the room.

This time he almost ran into the ghost and he stopped, glaring. "What?" he asked. "What is it?"

The ghost gestured towards the casket and Alex scowled. "It's a funeral," he snapped. "Why does it matter _who's_ funeral?"

But the ghost didn't budge and Alex whirled angrily. "Fine," he snapped, stalking towards his counterpart.

Without his instruction, his footsteps slowed, stopping just out of sight of the body.

The spectre, standing right by his shoulder now, laid a cool hand on his shoulder and urged him gently forward.

Step by slow step, Alex inched the rest of the way forward to the coffin.

"You've got some nerve, showing up here," spat a hostile voice up ahead, and Alex jerked his head up.

"I'm just here to pay my respects," muttered the other Alex, barely glancing at the angry man right in front of him.

"Respects?" exclaimed the man with a harsh, forced laugh. Alex thought he looked vaguely familiar, but couldn't place him. "If you had _respected_ him, you would have answered the phone. If you had _respected_ him you wouldn't have made him worry that you were dead over and over and _over_ again! You wouldn't have _killed_ his girlfriend without an explanation. You were _never_ there for him. No matter _what_ he did, you were too caught up in your own drama to ever _notice _that maybe he needed more than a part-time friend and now he's _dead_."

Suddenly, Alex placed the man and dread immediately uncoiled in his stomach.

"No," he whispered, the blood draining from his face. "No. No. Nononononono."

He ran to the coffin, desperate to disprove the unthinkable suspicion.

"Shit," he muttered, tears springing to his eyes. "Why?" he asked, reaching out a hand to stroke his friend's face. "Why him?" he asked spinning to face the ghost at his shoulder. "Why did it have to be Tom?"

Even as he watched, his counterpart took one last glance at Tom, then nodded to Jerry and silently left the church.

Alex glanced down and his breath caught. The coroner had done a good job, but the scar was still visible, just, over the top of the stiff collar that Tom would have hated, had he still been alive.

Someone had cut his throat.

"Who killed him?" snarled Alex.

The figure didn't answer, instead it simply shook its head.

"That's not a fucking answer!" spat Alex.

"He killed himself," said the ghost, it's tone emotionless.

"No," said Alex. "No, he didn't. His throat was _cut_."

"He did it himself," reiterated the ghost, gesturing back to the body.

"No," whispered Alex, but his eyes were already cataloguing what he had subconsciously ignore before.

The scar: it wasn't a clean cut; a blunt knife had been used – a kitchen knife or pen knife or something – and it looked almost as if Tom had been stabbed in the jugular before the knife had been ripped across his windpipe. Even Alex, who was no expert in post mortems, could tell that it hadn't been cut from behind.

"He wouldn't," he whispered, turning away even as his mind was filled with images of a desperate Tom taking a knife to his own throat. How much despair, how much _hate_, would it take to kill yourself like _that_, wondered Alex with a shudder.

"Why are you showing me this?" he whispered, but the figure didn't answer.

And the brief spark of annoyance ignited the despair into anger and the teen was surging forward to grab the ghost by its starlight cloak.

"Why?" he screamed, shaking the figure. "Give me one good reason why!"

"Because you needed to see," said the figure, easily dislodging Alex's hands and stepping forward. "you needed to know, to change."

And the ghost lowered its hood.

"Yassen?" whispered Alex.

It _looked_ like Yassen. It had that same cold grace, and a killer's eyes. Blond hair and pale skin and an emotionless voice.

"No," said the ghost. "Look again."

And Alex did. There was no scar across his throat. He wasn't tall enough. His eyes were brown.

"Who are you?" asked Alex, shaking his head in denial of what he already knew.

"I am your future," said the ghost. "I am what you will become."

"No!" said Alex, stumbling backwards. "No, I won't! I won't!"

"Change," said the ghost emotionlessly. "Change, or lose yourself."

"No!" yelled Alex, still shaking. He couldn't end up like that. He couldn't become _that_. He had thought he would turn into someone like Ian, but this was so much _worse_. The embodiment of everything he hated about espionage.

"NO!" screamed Alex, and jolted awake.

He was on his sofa, in his living room. There was no ghost, no Jerry and no dead Tom.

He was alone. He concentrated on his breathing until he felt his hammering heart slow.

Had it all been a dream? Not-Jack, Not-Tom, and _Not_-him? He didn't know. He couldn't bring himself to check his laptop just yet.

He could still hear the ghost's parting words echoing around his head.

_Change, or lose yourself._

Well, Alex had always prided himself on his adaptability, hadn't he? He could change. He _would_ adapt to normality.

And he smiled. In the end, whether it was a dream or not didn't matter. He knew what he had to do.

-o-O-o-

Sabina forced a laugh as Emily, her friend from school, managed to fall off the chair trying to snag a sausage roll from the coffee table without standing up. She thought she had been convincing.

The party was in full swing. Some more of her school friends were dancing in the dining room, with the table hastily moved. Her mum and dad's friends were in the kitchen talking and sipping wine and laughing together. Her mum was pulling out another tray of food from the oven and her dad was opening another few bottles of wine. Sabina, Emily and a boy called Matt – who Sabina was fairly convinced had a crush on _him_ – had carefully positioned themselves next to the chocolate fountain, hidden from her parents' view by the crowd.

Normally, she would be enjoying herself immensely, but tonight her heart wasn't in it. He was out there, doing God-knows-what against God-knows-who. And it was brave and heroic and she would never deny that. But he was _hers_. Hers to love and pester and protect, and she couldn't do that unless he was _here_. He was her little brother, and she was losing him.

A knock came on the door and Sabina sighed before rising from her seat.

"One second," she murmured to her friends and weaved her way through the clusters of people to answer it.

She pulled it open with a smile, then froze.

"Alex?" she whispered, barely daring to believe it.

"Hey Sab," he said with a charming, slightly uncertain, smile. "Can I come in?"

"Oh, Alex!" she said, and flung herself into his arms.

"You're ok," she whispered into his shoulder.

"Of course I am," grinned Alex squeezing her tightly. "You didn't think I'd miss Christmas, did you?"

"But you said-" she began, uncertainly.

"Never again," he whispered into her hair. "I swear. Never again."

-o-O-o-

_**A/N: So what did you think? Please review – even if it's only to yell at me for updating so late!**_


End file.
